BigButzBBQ
is Blowin Smoke!
- Joined
- Mar 16, 2010
- Location
- Northwestern Wisconsin
You never know when inspiration is going to hit you when it comes to cooking. The other day we were road trip bound and as per usual, the youngens asked to watch a DVD along the way. They decided that they wanted to watch Ratatouille, the animated one about the mouse that loves to cook. I personally think it is a great movie and it got me thinking about cooking and ratatouille itself. This is something I have never made but have always understand the premise of it being a baked vegetable dish. I also thought about how they make it in the movie with the nice uniform slices and how pretty it looked. Now, it's not that big of a mental leap to go from rat to root and think, "hey, maybe I could do something similar but with roots on the smoker!"
And that is how Rootatouille pie was conceived. I had initially planned on slicing everything up nice and uniform but, realizing I didn't have that kind of time, I opted to try out the slicer attachment for the the Kitchen Aid. Lets just say that, I'm not sure if I had the speed turned up to high or the wrong blade but, the slices were thing but far from uniform but, I figured I would work with it anyways. Here is the line up, Baby Red potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, 1 medium red onion, garlic, olive oil, oregano, thyme, and black pepper.
Started off by placing a foil sheet on a pizza pan. The pizza pan was just used as a solid base for prep and transport. There were no holes poked in the aluminum. Then on went a spiraling layer of baby red potato slices.
I gave the potatoes a good drizzling of olive oil, through some minced up garlic on and then did a layer of sweet potato slices in a spiral as well.
More olive oil was drizzled over the sweet potatoes. (If I were to make this again, at this point I would put some brown sugar on as well.) Then went on a layer of carrots followed by a little more olive oil and the spices with some more garlic.
Then half onion slice went on to the top and off to the UDS we went.
The UDS was chugging away at about 300 with hickory wood smoke as the sun was setting.
After an hour It looked done enough to me that it was time to come off. (It could have probably came off sooner but, I wanted to give all the layers as much time to bind as I could.)
When I brought it in, I decided to to slice it up like a pizza and serve it up in wedges.
It was a truly unique taste experience. All the layers were unique and brought their own essence to the party, the carrots on top soaked up the smoke flavor, the sweet potato brought the sweetness, and the potatoes blended so well with the garlic and olive oil. Truly great. As I said before the only change I would make would be to put brown sugar on the sweet potato layer. I plan on making this again most definitely. :thumb:
As a side note, I used olive oil as a fat to bind my layers together, for those that don't know, that is why dairy is such a major component of gratins. Also, I used no salt in the cooking process because I wanted to hold onto as much moisture as possible in the cooking process. Thanks for looking!
And that is how Rootatouille pie was conceived. I had initially planned on slicing everything up nice and uniform but, realizing I didn't have that kind of time, I opted to try out the slicer attachment for the the Kitchen Aid. Lets just say that, I'm not sure if I had the speed turned up to high or the wrong blade but, the slices were thing but far from uniform but, I figured I would work with it anyways. Here is the line up, Baby Red potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, 1 medium red onion, garlic, olive oil, oregano, thyme, and black pepper.
Started off by placing a foil sheet on a pizza pan. The pizza pan was just used as a solid base for prep and transport. There were no holes poked in the aluminum. Then on went a spiraling layer of baby red potato slices.
I gave the potatoes a good drizzling of olive oil, through some minced up garlic on and then did a layer of sweet potato slices in a spiral as well.
More olive oil was drizzled over the sweet potatoes. (If I were to make this again, at this point I would put some brown sugar on as well.) Then went on a layer of carrots followed by a little more olive oil and the spices with some more garlic.
Then half onion slice went on to the top and off to the UDS we went.
The UDS was chugging away at about 300 with hickory wood smoke as the sun was setting.
After an hour It looked done enough to me that it was time to come off. (It could have probably came off sooner but, I wanted to give all the layers as much time to bind as I could.)
When I brought it in, I decided to to slice it up like a pizza and serve it up in wedges.
It was a truly unique taste experience. All the layers were unique and brought their own essence to the party, the carrots on top soaked up the smoke flavor, the sweet potato brought the sweetness, and the potatoes blended so well with the garlic and olive oil. Truly great. As I said before the only change I would make would be to put brown sugar on the sweet potato layer. I plan on making this again most definitely. :thumb:
As a side note, I used olive oil as a fat to bind my layers together, for those that don't know, that is why dairy is such a major component of gratins. Also, I used no salt in the cooking process because I wanted to hold onto as much moisture as possible in the cooking process. Thanks for looking!
